There is only one thing that all in football will not have envied Sir Alex Ferguson yesterday, and that is his hangover. The Crowne Plaza hotel in Moscow's World Trade Centre is nobody's idea of a palace fit for a king, but the sovereign of the English club game celebrated his second Champions League crown there at a victory party that began not far from the time he usually rises for work back home in Cheshire. Surrounded by family, friends and colleagues, his overriding emotion would have been joy, but, tucked away inside, no doubt relief, too. This was a big one for him. The stakes were high.

Ferguson's position at Manchester United is unchallenged and unchallengeable. After a second successive league title with a group of players widely believed to be among the finest in Europe, there are no circumstances in which his prolongation would be questioned at board level and little doubt that this is a professional still performing at the peak of his powers, even if at home he is now plain Grandpa. The supporters adore him, too, and at 66 he still finds a way of connecting with men almost half a century his junior.

So Ferguson has only one judge, one person casting a critical eye over his career, weighing up his achievements and demerits. And had his team failed in Moscow, the face greeting him in the mirror yesterday morning would have been that of the scowling underachiever. Ferguson had the best team in Europe this season, as he did in previous years when he did not lift the European Cup. To return to Manchester empty-handed would have meant another year in which he knew that he could have done more.

If it seems churlish to review a United career in which 20 significant trophies have been won in terms of the few that got away, that is only what Ferguson does every day. In the days preceding the final he spoke time and again of the success in Europe his United team should have had. If Chelsea had won, the ultimate disappointment of the 2007-08 Champions League campaign would have been among his greatest regrets.

Some will say he got lucky, that Chelsea hit the woodwork twice and John Terry missed a penalty that would have won the game, but what Ferguson does is not luck. He demands respect from his players and in turn gives them strength. Late in the game, a touchline cameo highlighted what sets him apart.

During a break in play, Avram Grant, the Chelsea first-team coach, pulled Didier Drogba to one side for instruction. Drogba absent-mindedly supped from a water bottle, looking the other way as Grant spoke, giving no indication that he was listening or cared what this man thought. Grant was actually holding the front of Drogba's shirt to stop him drifting away. And sure enough, with four minutes of extra time left, when his team needed him, Drogba committed an offence of such insolent stupidity that he may well have cost his team the game. Compare that with Ferguson, at the heart of his group as the match moved into extra time, the cog around which the wheel turned, the audience rapt.

So while we know how close United came to defeat, Ferguson's part in victory cannot be understated. Holed up, keyed up, in his little bunker between the Luzhniki Stadium's running track and its touchline, heading imaginary balls, burying fantasy tap-ins, he will always be United's twelfth man, the one who knows that Anderson, at 20, has the temperament to be a sudden-death penalty taker, that Ryan Giggs has the legs for his 759th match. He is the man who maintained greatness at Old Trafford for long enough that Paul Scholes got his winner's medal after all. And there is no suggestion it will end here.

Each day at the training ground, Carlos Queiroz, Ferguson's assistant, observes his friend at work. That a quintessentially British manager should have a Portuguese citizen, born in Mozambique, as his right-hand man is a clue to one of Ferguson's other strengths: his capacity to embrace new ideas while never letting go of the worthiest of the old.

“You see the best of Alex, not when Manchester United are winning, but at the times when we are having our worst nightmares,” Queiroz said. “When we lose games and things are not going in the direction we expect, he comes in each morning with a smile and bursting with confidence that we can do right for the club. That is the amazing side of him.

“The day after we lost to Manchester City, or to Bolton Wanderers, I thought things were going to be sad, but he arrived singing and with a fantastic sense of humour. In those difficult moments, he helps us relax and do the job we must do, overcoming our mistakes.

“He just supports us and helps us stay strong. He only has positive words for the staff and the players. He never lets us down, always leading from the front, driving us forward. For me, there is no doubt that he is the best manager of his generation.”

And showing no signs of tiring, either, despite those who, with a yearning for the happy ending, would have him walk away now, at the top. The civilian red army had barely bounced down the stairs surrounding the stadium when Ferguson was talking, almost ominously, of the future.

There was something of the old Soviet double-speak in the way he spoke of his veteran pair, Giggs and Scholes. They would be around next season but were to be “phased out”. Before the final he talked of how proud he was of the achievements of his team, but said that the moment the game ended, even in triumph, this remarkable season would be consigned to history.

He will no doubt be seen smiling and singing around the place for a good while yet, but behind closed doors he still has to answer to that grumpy little assessor within. The one that is never satisfied; the one that, long before the party was over, was already asking him: so what about next year, next year, next year?